The Twelve Little Cakes (21 page)

“Very well,” my father growled. “Barry!
Pocem!
”

At the mention of his name, Barry lumbered out through the front door and trotted heavily down the steps, his tail wagging the whole way down. He took up his position beside my father and proceeded to drool in front of the comrades, staring up at them with his red-rimmed eyes.

“Vem si je!”
my father commanded.

Barry swivelled his big head to look up at my father, and if the expression on his face could have been translated, it would have been, “You're kidding.” But loyal as he was, Barry let out a deep sigh and recomposed his body on the steps, and I watched in amazement as he lifted his head and began to growl. It was a sound unlike anything I had ever heard him make. There was no mistaking the danger. The two men took a hasty step backward, but while Comrade Berka continued to glare at my father, I noticed that his driver was staring at Barry with amazement.

“That 's . . . Bohousek, from the movies,” he said finally. “The Dog Who Eats Everything.”

“That's right,” my father growled. “And he'll eat you in a minute if you don't get off my property!”

Barry continued to snarl, and then he worked himself up into a fit of frenzied barking. His voice echoed up and down the mountain, sending the comrades running for the safety of their jeep.

“If you think this is over, you are very wrong,” I heard the cooperative chief shout at my dad. “Your entertainment connections mean nothing up here. To us, you're just a man with a dog, and I tell you this: dogs can have accidents, just like people.”

“Oh, so now you're threatening Bohousek, are you?” my father roared. “I'm sure your grandchildren would be delighted to hear that.”

The rest of the exchange was muffled by the sound of the jeep's engine, but as the two men drove away, I glimpsed the driver craning his neck to take one last look at our famous dog.

For all of his unpleasantness, he was obviously a fan.

My dad and Barry stood at the gate and watched the comrades drive down the hill, and then came back inside to a hero's welcome. Mr. Glatz bustled around the kitchen, whistling cheerfully as he heated a saucepan of mulled wine to fortify us for our first day on the ski slopes. My mother was relieved, and even Klara was impressed. While we all knew that my father could take care of himself, the party was so unpredictable, small conflicts like this could easily get out of hand.

“‘Your entertainment connections mean nothing up here!'” my dad laughed. “That was a bit of a giveaway, wasn't it? Let's just hope they keep thinking we're connected!”

I ran over to Barry and gave him a pat. “Aren't you a good boy?” I told him. “You were so brave, you can have the rest of my breakfast sausage!”

Barry rolled his eyes and swallowed my sausage in one gulp, then he crawled under the table and watched us get ready. We had heard that one of the families in Semily operated a homemade ski lift, so we walked half a kilometer up the hill until we found a small group of people standing around a log cabin that housed a generator, an engine, and a rickety-looking contraption designed to pull skiers up a nearby slope. The slope was quite steep, so my mother, who had lent her skis to Tomas Glatz, insisted on acting as both my private ski lift and instructor, taking one end of my ski pole and pulling me up the shallow incline at the foot of the hill. For the best part of the day, she wore herself ragged while my dad, Klara, and Mr. Glatz had a great time on the slope. Every time they whizzed by, my mother and I would cheer them on, and then my mother would release my pole and I would ski down the bottom of the hill behind them. By the end of the day, my dad agreed to take me to the top of the slope. He positioned me between his legs so that we could catch the lift together, and we wobbled our way to the top of the hill.

“What do you think?” he asked me. “It's pretty steep. Do you think you can handle it?”

“Yes,” I told him. “Even if I fall over, it doesn't hurt because I'm so small!”

“Very well,” my father smiled. “You go first, and I'll ski right behind you.”

“Okay!” I said. And promptly skied down the hill.

We had such a wonderful time in the mountains, we completely forgot about the morning confrontation, and so it was with some surprise that we arrived home to find our Skoda completely buried beneath a snowdrift that had been caused by a snowplow driving up and down the road beside it. My dad laughed at the petty nature of Comrade Berka's revenge, but he stopped laughing after it took him and Mr. Glatz the best part of a day to dig the car out of the snow. We kept the car in our yard after that, but when we returned from skiing a few days later, someone had dumped a full pile of horse manure in our driveway. And then there was the problem with the people in the village. While the mountain folk on the ski slopes were friendly enough, whenever my mother and I went shopping in Semily, the villagers could be quite rude. One day, I accompanied my dad and Mr. Glatz to the pub to buy some cigarettes, and the room fell silent when we entered, just like in the Rotten pub in Cernosice. Comrade Berka and his driver were sitting at a table near the bar, and they met my father's fierce smile with ferocious grins of their own. As we left, Comrade Berka muttered something to his friends, and the whole pub exploded in laughter.

“I'm going to have to do something about this,” my father growled as we walked to our car.

“What? Now?” Mr. Glatz asked nervously.

“No. But I'm going to have to confront this idiot publicly, otherwise he's going to keep nipping at my heels.”

“What are you going to do, Dad?” I asked.

“I don't know,” he said. “But I'll think of something.”

We drove back to the cottage and hung our jackets to dry on the wooden rack above the stove, then we gathered around the table in our pajamas. It was the second to last day of our vacation, and my father spread his big map of the mountains out in front of us.

“I was thinking we might climb to the plateau tomorrow,” he said. “It's supposed to be the best cross-country skiing in the region.”

“We could take Barry,” I suggested. “Poor old Barry has spent his holiday indoors and hasn't even seen the mountains!”

“I don't see him complaining,” my sister pointed out. “Do you?”

“We could tie a barrel of rum around his neck like a proper Saint Bernard,” Mr. Glatz laughed. “It might come in handy in an emergency.”

“Well, who will guard the cottage if we take Barry?” my dad asked.

“I don't mind,” my mother volunteered. “I've never been particularly good at cross-country skiing. I'd just as soon stay at home with a book.”

“Hear that, Barry?” I dove under the table. “You're coming to the mountains with us. Won't that be good?”

I put my arms around his neck and buried my face in his fur. He looked up and wagged his tail a few times, and then he lowered his head onto his paws and fell right asleep.

We awoke before dawn the following morning and waxed our skis for the climb. I didn't have cross-country skis, but I insisted on coming along. I balanced my little yellow skis across my shoulder as we followed the forest trail to the steep slope that led to the plateau. We finally climbed up through the clouds where the sky became blue and the sun shone brightly overhead, and a large white plain spread out in front of us.

“The hardest part is over,” my father said cheerfully. “From here, all we have to do is follow the blue markings to the mountain lodge.”

We put on our skis and set off across the plain. It was much easier skiing across the soft plateau snow than climbing the hard snow of the mountain, but as we rounded a patch of dwarf pines and saw the lodge in the distance, my father noticed that Barry was limping. We stopped to inspect his paws and discovered they were encrusted in ice. The soft snow had worked its way in between his toes, forming big packs of ice that turned his feet into hooves. We cleaned the snow out, but his paws were quickly covered with ice again, and after the third or fourth time they started to bleed. Saint Bernards are a famous breed of mountain dog, but their feet are not designed for soft snow. It took us a long time to reach the mountain lodge, and by the time we did, poor old Barry could hardly walk.

The lodge was a handsome wooden chalet surrounded by a fence of skis and a gathering of skiers sitting at the long, beer garden-style benches out front. As we staggered into view, the skiers became very excited by the appearance of Bohousek, and Barry was quickly surrounded by a group of admirers, all of whom were brandishing sausages and bread. Despite the pain in his feet, he rose to the occasion and theatrically ate all the food he was offered, and the manager of the lodge was eventually called outside to pose for a photograph feeding Barry a pot of goulash. By the time the photos had been taken and the manager had gone back to work, we discovered that Barry's belly was twice its original size. He lay on his side panting heavily and groaning, and after my dad put him on the leash, he started to limp along behind us. The sun was low now, and the wind had turned sharp, blowing snow into our eyes. The ice continued to stick to Barry's paws, and after half a kilometer, it was obvious that he could go no farther.

“Come on, Barry!” I cried, but the poor dog was having a terrible time. His paws were bleeding and his stomach was fit to burst. He fell over on his side and began to whimper miserably.

“I don't think he's going to make it down the mountain,” my father said worriedly.

“What do you want to do?” Mr. Glatz asked.

“I don't know,” my dad said. “The snow is picking up and it's starting to get cold. Maybe you should take the girls and I'll try to get Barry down on my own.”

“I'll help you, Dad,” I volunteered. “I'm not cold!”

“Don't worry about me, I'll be fine,” my father said. “Tom, if you could carry my backpack and poles, that would be a great help. Take Klara and Dominika down to the cottage, then get the car and meet us in the village.”

“Are you sure?” Mr. Glatz asked doubtfully.

“Not really, but I don't see any alternative, do you?” my dad replied.

“I'll stay!” I insisted. “I want to help.”

“Now is not the time, little one,” my dad said. But then he unexpectedly relented, and as Klara and Tomas skied away across the plain, we crouched down beside Barry.

“What are we going to do, Dad?” I asked. “I don't think he can walk.”

“No. His paws are frostbitten,” my father agreed. “I think I'm going to have to carry him down on my back.”

“On your back? But he's even bigger than you are!”

“He's as big as a house,” my dad laughed ruefully. “And I'm wearing cross-country skis. But at least we're going down instead of up. Do you think you can stay with me the whole way down the mountain?”

“I'll try,” I said. “Will we be going very fast?”

“With Barry on my back? I don't think so. Just stay ahead of me so that I can see you, because once we get started, I don't think we're going to be able to stop.”

“I bet I can do it,” I said confidently. “I've had lots of practice.”

“Yes you have,” my dad agreed. “Just stay in front of me, okay?”

He squatted down like a weightlifter, and we somehow managed to get Barry to climb onto his back. The dog must have weighed at least seventy kilos, and my father's skis sank deeply in the snow as he straightened his knees and took the weight on his shoulders. He rose slowly and took a couple of experimental steps. Satisfied that he could ski with Barry on his back, he told me to flatten the snow ahead of him by skiing across it as heavily as I could.

“All right. Let's get this over with,” he growled.

The wind howled across the plain as we began our descent. When we finally reached the edge of the plateau, my knees were shaking and my face was frozen, but it was nothing compared to the challenge of skiing the whole way down the mountain without stopping. I quickly realized that the trail was steeper than the pleasant slopes I had been skiing on all week, and as we progressed, we gathered speed like a train without brakes. I desperately tried to keep my balance, concentrating harder than I had ever concentrated in my life. My little yellow skis were made of cheap plastic, and my dad's cross-country skis were completely wrong for fast skiing, but somehow we hurtled through the forest like a couple of downhill racers. Looking back, it was a miracle that we made it to the bottom in one piece. Suddenly, we were out of the trees and whooshing down the slopes that overlooked the village, and just when I thought the worst was over, I found myself trying to brake on the icy street that led straight to the local pub. But the road gradually leveled out and we finally came to a halt in the middle of the village. The pub door flew open and a group of drinkers came out onto the balcony. Comrade Berka was with them, and as my dad crouched down to let Barry off his back, the cooperative chief let out a hoot of derision.

“Look, it's the famous film-star family from Prague!” he jeered. “Their dog is so special, they carry him everywhere!”

I turned to look at my dad, and he was so exhausted he could hardly stand up again.

“Having a bit of trouble there, comrade?” the cooperative chief threw his beer glass in the snow and lurched down the stairs.

“You think you can just breeze into town and we're going to kiss your ass because your dog was in a couple of films?” he laughed. “I'm afraid it doesn't work like that around here.”

“Who's we?” my dad panted. “The only person I see kicking up a stink is you, you fat bastard.”